So long and thanks for all the fish

These posts are intended to share information and ideas about climate change and hence act as a roundtable for readers to contribute items of interest. Again, I do not want to spend time in comments rehashing whether human activity causes climate change.

This edition links to some summary posts of the year and of several important conferences.

I always write this introduction last, so here I’ll shed a ceremonial tear, as this will be the last Climate clippings, at least for a while.

1. Cool rooves in LA

earlier this week [ie on December 17], the Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted [pfd] to update the municipal building code to require all new and refurbished homes to have “cool roofs,” or roofs using materials that reflect sunlight rather than absorb it. In making the change, Los Angeles became the first major city to require “cool roofs” on new homes.

The reason behind the change is that, in cities where buildings are clustered together, roofs absorb sunlight, leading to the urban heat island effect and higher temperatures concentrated in urban areas. Researchers expect temperatures in Los Angeles to rise 3.7-5.4 degrees Fahrenheit by midcentury.

3. Naomi Klein lambasts mainstream environmentalists

Basically she sees them as fellow travellers of dominant political ideology of market fundamentalism. Radical GHG emissions policies need radical social movements to back them. Klein was speaking at Radical [greenhouse gas] Emissions Reduction conference in London organised by the Tyndall Centre. The rest of the post goes on to summarise the sessions at the conference, some of them quite practical in nature.

4. Summing up 2013

Overall, 2013 was a productive year in terms of reducing the consensus gap and debunking the ‘pause’ myth. Climate policies were a mixed bag, with some steps backwards and some steps forward. Climate media coverage was likewise a mixed bag, with continued false balance and inaccurate reporting from the politically conservative media, also seeping into the BBC. The New York Times eliminated its environment desk, but The Guardian stepped in to fill the gap with its new Environment Blogs.

A lot of interesting new climate research was published during the year, including a new IPCC synthesis report. However, progress toward solving the climate problem remained far too slow. Here’s to 2014 being a more productive year for climate solutions.

Dana also reported on the giant American Geophysical Union Conference which meets towards the end of each year.

One item mentioned in both is a widget released by Skeptical Science which calculated the energy absorbed by the planet in global warming as equivalent to 4 Hiroshima atomic bomb detonations, 2 Hurricane Sandys, or 4 magnitude 6.0 earthquakes per second. Make that 7,409,177,820,267,687 kitten sneezes:

That’s 7.4 quadrillion if you want to say it fast.

Climate blogging pause

When you see this post you will also see a Goodbye, again post on the front page with Larvatus Prodeo signing off again. I do feel a bit sad, but Buddhist wisdom suggests that one shouldn’t spend emotional energy beating oneself up about what is inevitable, rather save one’s energies for the next task at hand.

Whilst I’m going to be attending to some other matters for the next three months one of those matters will be working on a new blog, focussing on climate but also other stuff. It actually exists in prototype and I’m quite fond of it. As I said in the Goodbye post, I reckon if, come April, you Google ‘climate plus brian’ you’ll find me if I’m there. I say “if” because the future is by definition uncertain.

So it’s hopefully not goodbye, rather au revoir, auf Wiedersehen or just “seeya!”

[Moderator note: Hey, y'know that cute thing you're doing using a URL that doesn't actually exist in the user website field? Not actually that cute, and welcome to the pre-mod filter, and all your comments will be redacted to link to our comments policy in the user website field instead. ~ Cat Herding Cabal]

The Earth’s climate is far more sensitive to carbon dioxide emissions than previously thought, heightening the likelihood of a 4C temperature rise by 2100, new Australian-led research of cloud systems has found.

It’s about clouds – there will be less cloud as the temperature rises.

As a result, the world can expect a temperature increase of “at least” 4C by 2100 if, as predicted, there is a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. This could then rise by more than 8C by 2200.

Actually I think we are headed for more than a doubling of CO2, since pre-industrial, which is what they would be talking about.

Brian, I think a lot of people think “2 degrees by 2100? That doesn’t sound too bad really” without realising that warming doesn’t end there. 8 degrees by 2200 is terrifying, and I’m glad I’ll be long dead.

Brian, thanks greatly for your considerable efforts in putting together this series of informative posts.

Looks like we’re (human civilisation) is pretty well stuffed from where I’m sitting. and a bit like DI(nr), I too am glad that I’ll be well out of the picture as the extreme effects of AGW become more apparent.

Thanks Brian. I reckon that one of the early warming issues to herald major social changes will be management of outdoor work in summer. I can’t imagine that anyone will be expected to routinely work outdoors in 45C+, day after day, month after month. We’ll need to shift, fairly rapidly, to night work across large areas of the economy. Then there’s the matter of simple heat management for the poor and elderly. There’s already a call for libraries to be converted to ‘cooling centres’ for those unable to pay for peak aircon or those unwilling to use it. And the tendency, all the time, will be to more and more aircon in businesses and shopping centres otherwise who would go into them? A fair dinkum attitude would see some pretty severe power management regulations for all new buildings insisting on maximal passive cooling, no more glass curtain buildings and so on.

Jugney: I have spent years working in places where the temperatures in the shade are often over 40 and sometimes over 45. Bearable (but not desirable) if it is dry heat, you are acclimatized, appropriately dressed and have plenty of water. High humidity is much harder to take, particularly if there is no breeze or fans where you are working. (Also spent years on Groote Eylandt we started to sweat in Aug and stopped in May.)
Add a few degrees and working at night becomes more and more attractive.

Hi all, I’ve put my first go at providing info on community solar on my blog ( which you can access through clicking on my name, above). I’m currently at my holiday reveg block, with a small solar panel, which my brother kindly installed – it’s enough to charge my mobile, but pretty hard to blog from a mobile.

So in other words, happy for any of you to visit and add useful info/ correct anything.

John D: well, I a pink Aussie, a sweater, and am even now wearing a bandanna to prevent rivulets pouring down my face. I can’t imagine outdoors all day in 45 degrees except as some sort of vision of hell.

Jugney: At 45 deg dry heat you will not be covered by sweat – it disappears so fast sweat is definitely not a problem. You will also find that it is more comfortable out of a breeze than in the breeze.
You will find that water consumption is enormous. I remember one not noticeably day when I lost 2 kg in a few hrs doing a low energy bushwalk.
The amount of energy you can expend will probably depend on the rate your body will absorb water.
You will also find that many things that are out in the sun are too hot to touch.
No doubt there are studies on just how much work a fit worker can do in 45 deg heat.

John D: I’ve had to change my attitude, since being a kid, to drinking water. In the old days, on a club bushwalk, we were encouraged to conserve what water we carried against there being none in upcoming creeks. It got so that I could smell water in a gully, however little it was. The result, some thirty years later, after many years not drinking much, was the agony of stones. So, now I drink, in humidity, with consequent moist results. Maybe one day I’ll enjoy 40 degree heat out of a breeze. In the meantime, I exist by using aircon only on the worst of days in a little isolated and heat shielded room in the middle of the house. All old fashioned stuff – the blinds drawn, windows and blinds shut and all opened up as soon as the sun is down.

Roger Jones’ has a post on an article by John McLean in the Fairfax press. The McLean article is a follow-up to one by Maurice Newman, the head of Tony Abbott’s hand-picked business advisory council.

There has been an excellent response from Giles Parkinson at The Guardian and elsewhere. There was an earlier CEDA speech which said much the same, evoking this response from the Fin Review’s Chanticleer column:

“It would seem the best way to view Newman’s speech is as an exposition of what Abbott might have said had he been freed of the political constraints that go with being in government.”

Unfortunately since there has been no comment from Abbott or Greg Hunt we are entitled to believe that they support the article.

Brian:
A practical question. Whenever you do start your own climate blog, would you be able to email each of us please? The interwebs is a very b-i-g place and trying to find you by guesswork would need the patience of Job (I’m lazy, that’s all ).

Jungney @ 16:
John D has wise words there @ 14 and 17.
(I used to be a soldier and then a railway fettler – doing heavy work at 40+ was standard).

The current polar vortex hitting the United States is the other extreme of climate disruption. Minus 45 in Minnesota.
Better learn how to cope with never-seen-before cold as well.
There are differences between -6 and -16 and between -16 and -30 (my coldest was -35 and it was uncomfortable even when properly dressed and behaving sensibly). Ask a Finn or Russian Siberiak or a Canadian for worthwhile advice.

As for the climate change deniers who use this current polar vortex as “proof” that climate change is a load of bunkum – just tell them to shove it up their jumper …. and to rush out and stock up on thermal underwear before the shops sell out. Ha-ha-ha-ha.

I bush walked most weekends during the time i lived in the middle of WA. This meant there were many days when I would have walke when shade temperatures were over 40 deg C. A few tips:
- Carry a lot of water.
- Turn around when you have used 1/2 of the water unless you are very very sure that you can find water further along the track.
- Dont assume that a pool or spring marked on a map will have water. (Or in many case, that you will be able to find it – Many of the pools of water I used were about the size of a bath.)
Learn where water is likely to be in the sort of country you are using. Well used kangaroo tracks often lead to water.
Carved nested circles are often a sign of nearby water.
Smart to do what I did and gradually explore out over a number of walks. This helps you know where you are and where water is or is likely to be.
Carry a lot of water in your vehicle so that you have a chance of survival if the vehicle breaks down or you have used all your water by the time you get back to the vehicle.
Breathe through you nose to conserve moisture – also puts a limit on how energetic you can be – reduces the risk of heat exhaustion.
Know the symptoms of heat exhaustion. Once heat exhaustion starts, slow down (better still lie down in the shade for a while.) Wet clothes or immerse yourself in a pool. (I wetted hat and shirt every time I came to a pool for comfort.) Drink water. There is no prize for dying from heat stroke to conserve water.
Dont drink water to cool down, drink when you feel a bit thirsty.
Make sure someone really knows where you are going and when to push the panic button. (I used to mark on a map the track I intended to take.)
Where loose clothes of thickish cloth. (I used heavy duty cotton work shirts. The thick cotton protects from the heat of the sun and absorbs sweat so that it can evaporate and cool instead of dripping off.

I know I’ve had differences with some people on this site, and I know we’ve had debates on the climate clippings threads about whether we’re all stuffed and it’s hopeless, or whether we should still focus on encouraging action (which I suspect is also an internal debate for many people, including Brian), but I hope you will support me in my efforts to enlist the health lobby in promoting environmental sustainability.

I look forward to your return in three months Brian, and I hope we will all be able to find you via google, so you don’t have to email us all. If you aren’t accessible via google in a few months’ time, maybe you could send a broadcast email to explain what’s happened. All the best.

In my 50s and 60s I did some 3-4 hour lawns with a push mower in the western suburbs and was never deterred if the temperature looped into the low 40s, as it did from time to time. The only thing I’d add is that I used to drink water by the clock, every 20 minutes at least, ahead of feeling thirsty.

If people are pestering you or rolling in the aisles about climate change in view of the big freeze, tell them we can expect more of the same with global warming. It’s all about the Arctic Oscillation and the jet stream.

Check out Dr Jeff Masters’ Wunderblog. I’d recommend reading the first paragraph and skip to the video at the bottom if you are in a hurry.

Brian @ 27
Sorry I don’t think I expressed it very well – I’m not asking that you (or anyone else) support me specifically, or join any specific group (though I think a few posts back you did encourage people to join local environmental groups or add their voices to causes eg through Get Up?) Basically I mean that no matter how pessimistic people might feel, I hope they will keep advocating for action and patiently explaining to people what can be done through whatever forums or means they can.

Personally I think getting the public health lobby on board (some are already but there isn’t a united voice) would be really useful, so hope you and others reading or commenting on this blog will also advocate for that eg as a topic for future posts or in whatever way suits you. Anyway, thanks again for all your work, see you (virtually) in the future I hope.

Brian @26: Drinking by the clock can waste water when you are bushwalking and carrying water in hot weather. It is easy to waste water by drinking to keep cool instead of when you need it. Feeling thirsty is a reasonable guide but you may need to drink more if you start getting a headache or feel heat stressed.
The mines I have worked at in hot areas of Aus now have “pee charts” to tell you whether you are drinking enough. Deep yellow or orange is a clear message that you need to drink more.
Closest I have ever come to being in trouble was in the Kimberleys. i was walking along cliffs above a running river assuming that I could get down to the river when I needed a drink. By the time I realized that that note of the gullies going down to the river actually got me there I was feeling pretty uncomfortable. Lots more uncomfortable by the time I retraced my steps to a place where I could climb down the cliff to water.
A classic case of assuming there was accessible water ahead and starting to get into trouble when I realized there may not be.

Back in the nineties when I was in my 50s I was working up to 10 hours a day and in the summer months sometimes worked on 30 or more consecutive days, averaging perhaps 6 hours a day. This would include days where the temperature was in the 30s but so humid my clothes were like I’d walked under a shower. So I had a policy of drinking about as much as I could comfortably stand.

I don’t work so hard now and BTW I don’t think we get as many super-humid days as we used to.

Further to @ 28, Jeff Masters says no records were broken in the big freeze. In fact he quotes weather historian Christopher C. Burt:

“The only significant thing about the cold wave is how long it has been since a cold wave of this force has hit for some portions of the country–18 years, to be specific. Prior to 1996, cold waves of this intensity occurred pretty much every 5-10 years. In the 19th century, they occurred every year or two (since 1835). Something that, unlike the cold wave, is a truly unprecedented is the dry spell in California and Oregon, which is causing unprecedented winter wildfires in Northern California.”

He also reproduces a graph from a post by Andrew Freedman showing a downward trend in the number of very cold nights in various US cities. I wonder whet Dr Jennifer Francis of the meandering jet stream video has to say about that!

I designed, project managed and owner built a 2 level 400 m sq house (Phillip Island) that focused on mitigating high temperatures rather than worrying about the few weeks of cold weather. There is no inbuilt heating or cooling and whilst I’m not too fussed about the numbers, I can report that after 2 years the external temp range for the period is 45C to 3C whilst the internal range (upper level) was 14C to 28C, and even more stable downstairs. I’m using this data to refine the design of the PV system, and can report that all the classic passive solar design principals work a treat.

Every hour, a healthy kidney at rest can excrete 800 to 1,000 milliliters, or 0.21 to 0.26 gallon, of water and therefore a person can drink water at a rate of 800 to 1,000 milliliters per hour without experiencing a net gain in water, Verbalis explains. If that same person is running a marathon, however, the stress of the situation will increase vasopressin levels, reducing the kidney’s excretion capacity to as low as 100 milliliters per hour. Drinking 800 to 1,000 milliliters of water per hour under these conditions can potentially lead a net gain in water, even with considerable sweating, he says.

While exercising, “you should balance what you’re drinking with what you’re sweating,” and that includes sports drinks, which can also cause hyponatremia when consumed in excess, Verbalis advises. “If you’re sweating 500 milliliters per hour, that is what you should be drinking.”

But measuring sweat output is not easy. How can a marathon runner, or any person, determine how much water to consume? As long as you are healthy and equipped with a thirst barometer unimpaired by old age or mind-altering drugs, follow Verbalis’s advice, “drink to your thirst. It’s the best indicator.”

Personally, I reckon I sweat more since the change from F to C. Celsius doesn’t provide enough gradation. Heat management, according to old common sense rule of thumb, is forgotten culture. At 105 F. I always put myself in the shade and sat out the worst of the heat for the afternoon. On water was best of all.

There is a madness associated with the heat. Here in Drastic there is a certain class of retiree or pensioner who won’t commence to mow the lawn until say 14:00, right in the thick of it; it appears to be a challenge to the gods, one last act of defiance against common sense.

Thirty years ago anyone who went running at 105F would have been regarded as a nutter. These days it is nothing to see people running and cycling long at 40.5C.

Jugney: For me 100 deg F always sounded hotter than 40 deg C even though this is 104 deg F. Personally I think of “hot” as being 43 deg C because in central WA this was the temperature when it becomes cooler out of the wind. Never heard the one about deg C making it feel hotter before.
Brian: You would have to be pretty extreme to be killed by drinking too much water. However, you can become bloated, particularly if you have chilled water to tempt you drink more. The key thing is adjust your work rate to the temperature and humidity and to be aware of the colour of your pee and whether you are starting to really become heat stressed.

Please excuse long quote but I just came across this in an article by McCartney et al (Public Health 2008, 122:658-663)

The first two articles in this series have argued that public health professionals in the Western world face new challenges and unsolved problems from the 20th Century … . It has been argued that these problems arise as a consequence of the prioritization of economic growth as the central purpose of society. It is contended that climate change and rising energy costs will lead to profound changes in industrialized economies. This will bring many threats but there is also the prospect of a health dividend (less obesity, greater well-being, less inequality) arising from successful change.

It is now argued that to realize this dividend and avoid the worst consequences of an unsustainable future, three stages of change are required: (i) a realistic but optimistic mindset; (ii) a new public health discourse; and (iii) the use of an appropriate methodology which will define a new set of public health tasks

This is the kind of project I am engaged in, as I’ve previously discussed. I particularly liked the phrase “a realistic but optimistic mindset“.

I know this mindset that may be difficult at times, but I like this as a message for my (probable) last comment on “Climate Clippings”, while looking forward to Brian’s New Blog.

Val, realism and optimism is to like, but realistically I think people who are realists and optimists are optimistic because that is their nature.

Roger Jones has sprung to life with a couple of posts, including one on sea surface temperatures off the SW of WA. It seems there has been a distinct jump in the past few years. Roger raises the scary question as to whether WA id the canary in the mine in warming.

Brian @ 41
Well I was thinking that might be my last comment here – but anyway, yes optimism could be inborn temperament but I think likely also relates to early childhood experience too. However I think to some extent we can also decide how we view the world – a la mindfulness, cognitive behavior therapy etc

On related note, I also saw research with teenagers that showed a hopeful outlook on climate change was associated with pro environment behavior UNLESS it was based on denial, in which case it was negatively associated.

So I guess the trick is to remain positive about what we can do, while also being realistic. Bit hard last night here when it was 36 at 2 am and you’re thinking ‘is this the future?’ – which it likely is more and more I guess. Interesting about WA being the canary, I think south eastern Australua may be a bit that way too in terms of heat waves. Unlike 2009, this isn’t the end of a long drought so we may not reach catastrophic fire conditions, but I think they could get pretty bad.

I’m becoming a bit like some other people who almost feel that we need bad things to happen to show how wrong Abbott is. Unfortunately though we are already in what the BOM terms emergency heat wave conditions, so sadly it is likely that people will die. Hopefully our community care system is better prepared than in 2009, so there won’t be so many deaths, but it shouldn’t take 100s of premature deaths to make a government see sense, especially when it’s already happened before.

Well I was thinking that might be my last comment here – but anyway, yes optimism could be inborn temperament but I think likely also relates to early childhood experience too. However I think to some extent we can also decide how we view the world – a la mindfulness, cognitive behavior therapy etc

Outlook is one of six dimensions of emotional style. He provides 10 questions for each dimension to enable you to identify where you sit on the continuum from 1 to 10. On ‘outlook’ I came in at 3, which is towards the negative end of the scale. He stresses that no position is good of bad as such. A strongly positive score can mean, for example, that you don’t learn much from mistakes. In the context of what he said about that dimension and my scores on the other dimensions, I was happy with where I sat.

He says you get dealt a hand, as it were, whether through genes or early development or both. However he stresses the plasticity of the brain. So powerful life experiences can have an effect.

And yes, you can choose to change and he gives some do-it-yourself exercises to enable this. It’s a matter of training your brain as to which bits activate in certain circumstances and how the bits habitually relate to and interact with each other.

One of his big messages is that emotion involves many parts of the brain and is always in play.

On WA as a canary, there was a step change back in the 70s where the SW corner became drier and warmer. In an assessment a couple of years ago global warming or AGW was found to have made a definite impact along the southern part of the continent and up to the NSW border. Further north it’s less clear as to what’s going on.

Brian: A useful article on how the body handles heat.how heat, humidity and nightime temperatures affect you Key points:
1. Skin temp must be below 35 deg for enough cooling to take place.
2. We will die if the wet bulb temperature goes above 35 deg C.
3. We need to cool off at night for our bodies to recover from hot days. It is the hot nights that really do the damage to the elderly and very young.

Thanks, John. I knew there was a wet bulb threshold which was lower than one might think, but I didn’t know what it was.

During the 1980s I had experience with public service accommodation in a converted warehouse with thick concrete floors and walls, very high ceilings, and to begin with, no blinds on the windows. I found that office workers started to become unproductive if the temp went above 28C and below 18C, with clothes on. We didn’t try clothes off.

Brian: I am surprised that productivity dropped when the temp fell below 18 deg C. Up to a point, lower temperatures should be OK with warm clothing providing that you haven’t got hold. On the hot side, humidity makes a lot of difference, 28 deg C would be pretty comfortable in Newman, uncomfortable on Groote.
What you are used to and level of fitness is important too.
We have air con in one room and rarely use it. Personal fans make a lot of difference in Bris.

The reason I found out is that I have been advising people on benefits that they may be eligible for a No Interest Loans Scheme loan to buy solar panels under the HESS scheme. So – just as we get through another heatwave in Victoria, the federal government gets rid of a scheme that helped vulnerable groups to reduce energy costs and improve their home’s capacity to cope with temperature extremes!

I despair. The meanness and incompetence of this government knows no bounds.

Val/Brian: Some Xmas cheer would be nice. Meanwhile those this article from REnewEconomy offered some interesting facts and graphs re what has happened in the currrent (Jan 2014) heat wave and those nasty solar panels that have taken away the cream the fossil generators made during heat waves.

Among other things it is killing fossil power company profits: “Generators and retailers use elaborate hedging policies to reduce their exposure to such fluctuations – which can be triggered as much by bidding tactics and other factors as much as weather – but the fact remains that a large revenue pool has been evaporated by the impact of solar.
In the same way that one third of the network costs are to cater for about 100 hours of peak demand a year, generators source a huge amount of their annual revenue from similar events. The problem for many coal generators is that they grew to rely on these peak pricing events to boost their revenue, and inflate their values. Solar eats into those revenues whenever they produce – because the output comes during the day-time period, when prices are normally higher.

The financial advisors to the coal operators were so sure of the future that the coal plants were hocked to the eyeballs in debt, but when these pricing events started to decline, some generators – such as Loy Yang A – were barely able to meet even their interest payments, until AGL picked it up at a bargain basement price and refinanced and reduced the debt level.

In Queensland, the government’s antipathy towards solar may be explained by what it is doing to the state-owned generator, Stanwell Corp, which has more than 4,000GW of coal and gas fired generation, but didn’t make a single dollar in profit from those assets last year, only coal exports. It blames solar for putting into doubt the long term sustainability of its business.

One other graph is worth contemplating, and it is one that will continue to bedevil the established grid operators – be they networks, generators or retailers – and those who set policy and tariffs.

At the peak of demand the price in Victoria (and South Australia for that matter) made occasional jumps above $12,000/MWh. See the graph below, and thanks to Energy Matters for that one. As Energy Matters noted, the price of generation at those times was equivalent to nearly $13/kWh. The price of rooftop solar for households that had them? It would have remained constant – at just 13c-20c/kWh.

At the peak of demand the price in Victoria (and South Australia for that matter) made occasional jumps above $12,000/MWh. See the graph below, and thanks to Energy Matters for that one. As Energy Matters noted, the price of generation at those times was equivalent to nearly $13/kWh. The price of rooftop solar for households that had them? It would have remained constant – at just 13c-20c/kWh.

So those on on the full FiT in SA get around 52c/KWh all year round even when demand is really low. The FiT is a lot lower for new installations. However I think it would be reasonable for rooftop solar households to ask to be just paid the spot price at the time they are generating power. Which may be $13/kWh during the peaks and lower than what they get currently at other times. The owners would get to choose between a guaranteed payment rate all year based on an average return versus what the market pays.

Brian: I remember reading somewhere that the whole of the UK would have to be devoted to growing fast growing willow to generate enough charcoal to balance the UK emissions.
Just think about how much wood it would take per person to cancel out our per capita emisisons!

Further to @ 58, the EU is going for a 40% emissions reduction target by 2030 and 27% renewables. Emissions reductions “will have to be done by the member states’ cutting emissions at home, instead of funding projects abroad.”

40% isn’t particularly ambitious:

The 40 per cent goal is the “least ambitious” target the commission could have proposed if it remains committed to limiting warming, environmental consultancy Ecofys argues. It says the latest research suggests the EU should instead be aiming for a 50 per cent reduction.

Professor Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre on Climate Research goes further. He argues that if the climate is a bit more sensitive to greenhouse gases, or emissions peak later than scientists thought they would back in 2007, the EU’s new target should be closer to an 80 per cent reduction.